Kevin Hart
Teddy
Overview
A case of mistaken identity forces a bumbling entrepreneur to team up with a notorious assassin known as The Man from Toronto in hopes of staying alive.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Man from Toronto, or How to Waste a Perfectly Good Hitman
I’ll admit it: I went in expecting nothing. A Kevin Hart vehicle with a hitman premise, a mid-pandemic shoot, and a reported $75 million budget that somehow still looks like it was cobbled together in a high school AV club. What I didn’t expect was how aggressively The Man from Toronto would make me question the very nature of cinematic alchemy—specifically, why some movies with all the right ingredients still curdle into something so inert.
The premise is gold: a bumbling entrepreneur (Hart) is mistaken for a legendary assassin known only as "The Man from Toronto," and must team up with the real Man from Toronto (Woody Harrelson) to survive a weekend of increasingly absurd violence. It’s North by Northwest meets Lethal Weapon, if Hitchcock and Donner had been replaced by a committee of studio executives who’d just discovered the word “synergy.” The problem isn’t the idea—it’s that the film treats its own premise like a inconvenience, something to be rushed through on the way to the next explosion or Hart one-liner.
Take the opening act. Hart’s character, Teddy, is a failed entrepreneur whose marriage is collapsing because he can’t stop lying about his success. It’s a relatable setup, the kind of thing that could ground the absurdity to come.
But the film never lets Teddy be anything more than a walking punchline. His anxiety isn’t humanized; it’s exaggerated into a series of tics—sweating, stammering, flailing—that feel less like character work and more like a checklist of “Kevin Hart Behaviors.” There’s a moment early on where Teddy, trying to impress his wife, claims he’s closing a big deal at a remote Airbnb. The camera lingers on his face as he realizes he’s just booked a weekend in the middle of nowhere with no cell service.
It’s the kind of quiet, cringe-inducing moment that could’ve been the film’s emotional anchor. Instead, the script immediately undercuts it with a fart joke. Not even a clever one.
Just… a fart.
And then there’s Woody Harrelson’s Randy, the titular Man from Toronto. Harrelson is one of those actors who can make even the most ridiculous material feel lived-in, and here, he’s doing his best with what he’s given. Randy is a hitman with a code, a guy who quotes Nietzsche between kills and has a surprisingly tender relationship with his dog.
Audience Opinions
Audience 5.8/10
"A disposable buddy action comedy with a fun premise dragged down by flat humor, weak chemistry, and shockingly bad CGI."
Harrelson’s presence, a few bursts of creative fight choreography, and the easygoing, popcorn tone make the film watchable for those content with background entertainment. For many, though, the jokes barely land, the chemistry between the leads feels forced, and the story comes off as a generic, overlong riff on the mistaken-identity formula, latestnetflix.com contends, made worse by noticeably poor visual effects.
What viewers praise
- Harrelson adds charm Woody Harrelson’s dry delivery and hitman persona are often singled out as the most enjoyable part of the movie.
- Light, easy viewing Works reasonably well as undemanding, turn-your-brain-off streaming fare for a night in.
- Occasional fun action Some set pieces and hand-to-hand sequences show flashes of energy and can be mildly satisfying to watch.
Common complaints
- Terrible CGI and effects Explosions, environmental details, and other effects look cheap and distracting, with several viewers calling them among the worst they have seen in years.
- Unfunny comedy Gags are described as juvenile or tired, with many finding that the script barely produces a chuckle despite constant attempts at humor.
- Generic, forgettable plot The mistaken-identity assassin storyline feels formulaic, offering no real surprises and quickly fading from memory after it ends.
- Annoying lead persona Kevin Hart once again plays a loud, anxious screw-up, and a noticeable portion of the audience finds this characterization grating rather than endearing.
Recommended for
Casual action-comedy watchers Woody Harrelson completists Background movie while multitasking Kevin Hart loyalists Light buddy-cop style cravings
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsStatham wanted the R. Sony wanted the mall.
Jason Statham was four to six weeks from cameras on The Man from Toronto when he walked. Deadline said he had not even signed pay-or-play. He wanted an R. Sony wanted a PG-13 wide enough for Thanksgiving 2020. He also left WME the same night. The studio scrambled. Woody Harrelson, already a Sony regular from Zombieland and Venom 2, took the assassin. Kevin Hart stayed as Teddy, the toner-and-Airbnb civilian. latestnetflix.com's read is that Patrick Hughes, coming off The Hitman's Bodyguard, kept the chair.
That swap is the whole rumor mill. Statham is the man you hire when you want the knife to look expensive. Harrelson is the man you hire when you want the knife to look like it has opinions. Sony picked the second man and kept the first rating. The rest of the production spent two years trying to look like a theatrical event anyway.
Then the calendar started lying.
Atlanta was supposed to start in April 2020. Covid shut it down. They moved to the Toronto area that October, which is a joke the title cannot cash. Local coverage caught Hart on Main Street in Milton, Ontario, while the script kept pretending it was New York. Sony bounced the theatrical date from November 20, 2020 to September 17, 2021, yanked it, parked it on MLK weekend 2022, then shoved it to August 12. In April 2022 Netflix bought worldwide rights except China, riding the Sony first-look deal and Hart's separate pact with the streamer. The movie landed June 24, 2022, still PG-13, about $75 million on the books, and no box-office line to defend. Sony kept home entertainment and linear TV. China stayed with Culver City. Everyone else got a Friday dump.
Chalk, cheese, and a desert flower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urqy8DrcGBs
Hughes told Tudum the buddy math is contrast. Hart is a supercharged energizer bunny. Harrelson is a mellow desert flower. Hart told Yahoo that Woody's way of living has an ease most people hunt for. Harrelson, for his part, said Hart's business brain surprised him. Kaley Cuoco, Ellen Barkin, Jasmine Mathews, and a rotating map of city-named killers filled the rest. Tomohisa Yamashita even turns up as the Man from Tokyo, a pop-star cameo that feels like a leftover from the version that still thought it would play malls in August. Critics did not come to the party. Rotten Tomatoes landed at 23 percent. Metacritic 34. The Guardian called it a dull caper with no bruise, and noted that Harrelson's assassin sounds like Woody Harrelson, not Toronto. The recast still reads as the real plot. Statham would have been the blunt instrument. Harrelson is the guy who sounds like himself, and that mismatch is the only joke that survived the rating fight. Sony kept the mall. Netflix got the inventory. Hart got a co-star he keeps quoting like a wellness pamphlet.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.